I would agree that this is not what I would call acceptable customer service.
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Maximum Motorsports Camber Plate Failure
- Thread starter2012YellowBoss
- Start date
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The bolt that broke on the MM plate... was it one of the four M8 studs that holds it to the strut tower? That's a pretty small diameter bolt, but this is dictated by the holes in the strut tower (chassis limitation). There are only really 3 grades of bolt to use there... 8.8. 10.9 and 12.9. Each has a different ultimate tensile strength, but these grades also have other properties that might push the designer to the softer bolt.
About 35 ft-lbs is all it takes to snap an M8 sized grade 8.8 bolt. An adult can do that with their hands and a wrench. Depending on how that plate is made it might have to be one of the softer ones (if it is a welded ring). Those M8 bolts can snap. We tell our customers in our instructions to only use 17 ft-lbs on this bolt on our camber plates, but we still get one person a month that over-tightens one on some plate we make that uses M8 hardware at the chassis mounting holes. It happens. Its also a quick fix. Not making excuses for MM, but I know where they are coming from. :-\
I admit, the Vorshlag S197 camber plates are more expensive than almost anything in the Mustang market. At $439, they are priced the same as our BMW, Subaru, EVO, and other spherical top mount camber plates. Our design is pretty different than anything else out there, in that we always include a new upper spring perch with an integral/sealed/double-row radial bearing. I explain more about the difference in our plates in this article. If someone switches from OEM style springs to coilover springs, the camber plate stays the same but for $75 we send them the new radial bearing upper spring perches made for the specific spring diameter of your coilover springs (2.25", 60mm, or 2.5" ID).
Thanks,
About 35 ft-lbs is all it takes to snap an M8 sized grade 8.8 bolt. An adult can do that with their hands and a wrench. Depending on how that plate is made it might have to be one of the softer ones (if it is a welded ring). Those M8 bolts can snap. We tell our customers in our instructions to only use 17 ft-lbs on this bolt on our camber plates, but we still get one person a month that over-tightens one on some plate we make that uses M8 hardware at the chassis mounting holes. It happens. Its also a quick fix. Not making excuses for MM, but I know where they are coming from. :-\
ArizonaGT said:
I admit, the Vorshlag S197 camber plates are more expensive than almost anything in the Mustang market. At $439, they are priced the same as our BMW, Subaru, EVO, and other spherical top mount camber plates. Our design is pretty different than anything else out there, in that we always include a new upper spring perch with an integral/sealed/double-row radial bearing. I explain more about the difference in our plates in this article. If someone switches from OEM style springs to coilover springs, the camber plate stays the same but for $75 we send them the new radial bearing upper spring perches made for the specific spring diameter of your coilover springs (2.25", 60mm, or 2.5" ID).
Thanks,
I'd like to respond to some of the comments made by Mr. in his post.
For the record, I've had no communication with Mr. on this subject at all.
The person at MM who spoke to Mr. didn't tell him that we were having 2-3 stud failures per week. He told him that we had seen 1-2 per month. Yesterday I looked into this and we have had an average of 1.5 failures per month over the last three months. I'm not going to discuss the number of these c/c plates that we sell per month, but 1.5 failures is a very low failure rate for the total quantity shipped.
When we first saw one of these studs fail, we thought it was odd. We proceeded to test the studs to several different torque tests. The only way we were able to get the studs to fail was by progressively torquing them in steps up to 40lbs-ft. This is double the level we tell customers to torque them to in the instructions. It is also much higher than the recommended torque level from the manufacturer.
We recently repeated these tests with some variables added to see if they could cause the failure. Nothing we did caused the studs to fail at less than 40lbs-ft of torque.
One thing we did notice from Mr. post is that the nut was seized onto the stud. It is entirely possible that there was a problem with the nut/stud interface that caused the seizure. Once this joint is seized, all of the applied torque goes into the stud itself causing it to break. The stud is not designed to have a high level or torque applied across it. It is designed to be loaded in tension. The torque the stud sees should be a result of the torque applied to the nut multiplied by a correction factor (much less than 1) due to the friction between the nut and stud. When the nut and stud are seized together, the correction factor is 1.
Mr. statement about MM not warranting the part is false. It was replaced under warranty. He clearly knows this as he didn't pay for the part. In the state of California, for warranty purposes it is presumed that each party covers the shipping costs in one direction. In most situations, we normally cover the costs in both directions, even though we have no obligation to. We do this out of good will. In this case, I'm sure the decision was made to not pay for the shipping since we don't believe the part failed due to a defect.
With regards to the photo of the stud posted. There is no way to do a failure analysis from a blurry photo of this part. I agree that there is something that looks like rust in one location. For rust to form in this location, it would need access to oxygen, which means there would need to be a crack or large void. I don't see any evidence of a crack. In fact I see the opposite. There are no beach marks at all, which are usually present after a bolt with a crack fails. The bottom line is that no reliable conclusions can be drawn from such a photo.
If Mr. wants to send us back the stud pieces and the nut, we would be glad to look at them.
If we ever find any evidence that there is a problem with the c/c plate or any part of it, I'll post it here.
For the record, I've had no communication with Mr. on this subject at all.
The person at MM who spoke to Mr. didn't tell him that we were having 2-3 stud failures per week. He told him that we had seen 1-2 per month. Yesterday I looked into this and we have had an average of 1.5 failures per month over the last three months. I'm not going to discuss the number of these c/c plates that we sell per month, but 1.5 failures is a very low failure rate for the total quantity shipped.
When we first saw one of these studs fail, we thought it was odd. We proceeded to test the studs to several different torque tests. The only way we were able to get the studs to fail was by progressively torquing them in steps up to 40lbs-ft. This is double the level we tell customers to torque them to in the instructions. It is also much higher than the recommended torque level from the manufacturer.
We recently repeated these tests with some variables added to see if they could cause the failure. Nothing we did caused the studs to fail at less than 40lbs-ft of torque.
One thing we did notice from Mr. post is that the nut was seized onto the stud. It is entirely possible that there was a problem with the nut/stud interface that caused the seizure. Once this joint is seized, all of the applied torque goes into the stud itself causing it to break. The stud is not designed to have a high level or torque applied across it. It is designed to be loaded in tension. The torque the stud sees should be a result of the torque applied to the nut multiplied by a correction factor (much less than 1) due to the friction between the nut and stud. When the nut and stud are seized together, the correction factor is 1.
Mr. statement about MM not warranting the part is false. It was replaced under warranty. He clearly knows this as he didn't pay for the part. In the state of California, for warranty purposes it is presumed that each party covers the shipping costs in one direction. In most situations, we normally cover the costs in both directions, even though we have no obligation to. We do this out of good will. In this case, I'm sure the decision was made to not pay for the shipping since we don't believe the part failed due to a defect.
With regards to the photo of the stud posted. There is no way to do a failure analysis from a blurry photo of this part. I agree that there is something that looks like rust in one location. For rust to form in this location, it would need access to oxygen, which means there would need to be a crack or large void. I don't see any evidence of a crack. In fact I see the opposite. There are no beach marks at all, which are usually present after a bolt with a crack fails. The bottom line is that no reliable conclusions can be drawn from such a photo.
If Mr. wants to send us back the stud pieces and the nut, we would be glad to look at them.
If we ever find any evidence that there is a problem with the c/c plate or any part of it, I'll post it here.
As I said in the other forum...
Another example of why, where I work, we LONG AGO determined it's just easier to do right by the customer, in their eyes, and move on. I suspect the time it took for you to write this note, on multiple web forums where this has been posted, was more $$$ of your time than the bolt would have been to replace day one.
Fair or not add to that the 100+ people that previously read this post but will never go back now to read your reply.
Lesson learned I hope!
Another example of why, where I work, we LONG AGO determined it's just easier to do right by the customer, in their eyes, and move on. I suspect the time it took for you to write this note, on multiple web forums where this has been posted, was more $$$ of your time than the bolt would have been to replace day one.
Fair or not add to that the 100+ people that previously read this post but will never go back now to read your reply.
Lesson learned I hope!
- Thread starter
- #25
Thanks for taking the time to reply Jack.
You may be correct and I heard wrong about weeks instead of months on the failures, I'm not going to argue - a he said he said - point. However if you are trying to make me (us) feel better with those numbers it is not working, for me anyway. This is a critical part going on a high performance car that gets driven hard on the street and track. Failures or 1 or 2 a week or month is unacceptable in my opinion. You say you ship a lot and that makes the failure number smaller but how many people are swapping parts like springs after the initial install of the camber plates? I bet that number is very small and changes your percentages considerably.
I never said the nut was seized on the stud? I did say I put it in a vise because the part sent to me did not even include new nuts. As it turns out it came off very easy but I was unable to do it with my fingers since it is a locking type nuts and the stud was not long enough to get a good handle on.
You can not determine anything from the photo posted but yet you guys were able to determine that I over-torqued the nuts and broke this one without any pictures, the parts in hand, knowing anything about me or the way I work. I would think if you can determine a failure without any info a photo, even admittedly blurry, would have you locked in on a cause.
I offered to ship this to you so the shipping costs are irrelevant. You say this was covered under warranty and I am making false statements. I disagree with you on that since I was told the company denied this and the person I dealt with was doing me a personal favor by not listening to his boss and sneaking this out to me. I hardly see that as covering something under warranty. What I see is a company with a product with known problems trying to put off the weakness in the product onto the customer. Then acting like you are doing us a favor to replace it.
If these are failing at a rate of 1 to 2 a month there seems to be only two explanations. The part is not up to the task or all your customers are idiots and do not know how to handle a wrench? Most companies would take a harder look at the failures, it seems you have chosen to take a hard look at your customers. I am not sure that is the best way to run a business. Even if your customers can't handle the job of correctly torquing a nut, would it not be a good idea to use a stronger part in some anticipation or that, or is the weakest part that will get the job done once acceptable?
You may be correct and I heard wrong about weeks instead of months on the failures, I'm not going to argue - a he said he said - point. However if you are trying to make me (us) feel better with those numbers it is not working, for me anyway. This is a critical part going on a high performance car that gets driven hard on the street and track. Failures or 1 or 2 a week or month is unacceptable in my opinion. You say you ship a lot and that makes the failure number smaller but how many people are swapping parts like springs after the initial install of the camber plates? I bet that number is very small and changes your percentages considerably.
I never said the nut was seized on the stud? I did say I put it in a vise because the part sent to me did not even include new nuts. As it turns out it came off very easy but I was unable to do it with my fingers since it is a locking type nuts and the stud was not long enough to get a good handle on.
Jack Hidley said:
You can not determine anything from the photo posted but yet you guys were able to determine that I over-torqued the nuts and broke this one without any pictures, the parts in hand, knowing anything about me or the way I work. I would think if you can determine a failure without any info a photo, even admittedly blurry, would have you locked in on a cause.
I offered to ship this to you so the shipping costs are irrelevant. You say this was covered under warranty and I am making false statements. I disagree with you on that since I was told the company denied this and the person I dealt with was doing me a personal favor by not listening to his boss and sneaking this out to me. I hardly see that as covering something under warranty. What I see is a company with a product with known problems trying to put off the weakness in the product onto the customer. Then acting like you are doing us a favor to replace it.
If these are failing at a rate of 1 to 2 a month there seems to be only two explanations. The part is not up to the task or all your customers are idiots and do not know how to handle a wrench? Most companies would take a harder look at the failures, it seems you have chosen to take a hard look at your customers. I am not sure that is the best way to run a business. Even if your customers can't handle the job of correctly torquing a nut, would it not be a good idea to use a stronger part in some anticipation or that, or is the weakest part that will get the job done once acceptable?
One comment on torque and bolts in high stress applications. Coming from a farming and heavy equipment background CAT the #1 heavy equipment maker uses ONLY US Grade 8 bolts instead of the more common Grade 5 bolts used by other manufacturers. In an application like this with a Camber Plate that has a small bolt that is size restricted by the hole in the strut tower it would be a better option to use a metric equivalent to the US Grade 8 instead of the more common strength bolts. The fact that the OEM bolt is small because it just has to hold the shock in place as it is non adjustable where adj camber plates also have to deal with the sliding forces of the adj grooves and it is only a friction fit. IMHO and YMMV
Peter
Peter
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